May 17, 2025  
Fall 2025 Graduate Catalog 
    
Fall 2025 Graduate Catalog

Women’s, Gender, and Sexuality Studies


Certificate Awarded: Graduate Certificate in Women’s, Gender and Sexuality Studies

Chairperson: Liz Montegary; liz.montegary@stonybrook.edu
Graduate Program Director: Ritch Calvin; Ritchie.Calvin@stonybrook.edu
Assistant to the Chair & Graduate Program Coordinator; Jacqueline Donnelly, Humanities Building #2049 (631) 632-1466; jacqueline.m.donnelly@stonybrook.edu

Department Website

The Women’s, Gender, and Sexuality Studies Program, in the College of Arts and Sciences, offers a course of study that leads to the Graduate Certificate in WGSS. The program has affiliated faculty members from more than 20 different programs in the social and behavioral sciences,humanities, and health sciences. The program is designed to allow students working toward a degree in departments such as Art, English, History,Philosophy, Theatre, Music, , Psychology, or Sociology to draw on faculty whose work deals with gender and sexuality issues in a wide range of disciplines. Since WGSS has affiliates in nearly every department in the social sciences and humanities, the certificate program offers graduate students the opportunity for an unusually rich interdisciplinary experience.

The graduate certificate entails three required seminars-feminist theory, feminist histories and methodologies, and the teaching practicum in women’s, gender, and sexuality studies- and two electives that can be taken with affiliated faculty in the student’s home department or from a list of seminars offered by faculty affiliates in other departments. Recent and future courses offered by our core faculty and affiliates include,for example, “Modernism and Cultural Studies,” “Madness and Civilization, 1960-1980,” “Globalization and Gender,” “Fashion in Theory and Film,” and “Race, Gender, and Global Culture,” and “Silk, Gold and Spices: Literature and International Trade.” Where courses are not available for a particular topic, students may arrange directed readings with an affiliated faculty member.

It is expected that most students can fulfill the requirements for the Graduate Certificate in WGSS while working toward the master’s, doctoral, or other degree. Students should consult with their home program to determine whether the credits earned in the certificate program can be used toward their degrees.

Certificate Requirements


The Graduate Certificate Program in WGSS is designed to provide an interdisciplinary course of instruction for students already enrolled in agraduate degree-granting program or to those admitted to the free-standing Graduate Certificate Program. To earn the certificate, students mustcomplete a minimum of 15 graduate credits in courses approved for the Certificate Program. Approved credits earned toward a graduate degreein another program or department may be applied toward the Graduate Certificate in Women’s Studies. Students should consult with their homeprograms to determine whether credits earned for the certificate can be applied to the master’s or doctoral degree.

Electives (6 credits):


Only one elective (3 credits) may be a readings course taken with an affiliated faculty member and with approval from the WGSS graduatedirector.

For more information, contact


Department of Women’s, Gender, and Sexuality Studies
Room 2048, Humanities Building
SUNY Stony Brook
Stony Brook, NY 11794-5356
(631) 632-1967